This article suggests that the literature on how the European Union (EU) diffuses its norms externally and that on how it diffuses them internally should be linked. Therefore, the focus is on a field where the EU is described as a ‘normative’ power: climate change. The article analyzes how EU climate norms are diffused to new Member States. It argues that there are two roads to state socialization: through civil servants participating in EU work, and via domestic norm entrepreneurs. The empirical analysis is based on how four of the Member States that joined the EU in 2004–07 worked with the Climate and Energy Package of 2008–09. With the exception of one of the countries, there are few indications of an ongoing socialization process among them. For the EU as a normative power it is important to reflect upon why the underlying EU climate norms are rejected in the studied countries.

This article elaborates on the development of the Visegrad group (V4), consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, in relation to the European integration process in the aftermath of its many crises. The article suggests that the so‐called migration crisis that started in 2015 for the V4 countries constitutes a situation that, in the existing literature, has been described as a postfunctionalist moment. However, in the V4 countries a postfunctionalist moment does not merely suggest reluctance to agree to further integration and in general a turn to EU criticism, but a strengthening of the four countries' shared V4 identity as well. To elaborate on the way that the V4's handling of the migration issue contributes to V4 identity‐building, the article argues that the postfunctionalist literature needs to be supplemented by insights from social constructivism. The article utilises a narrative analysis to examine the way that a V4 identity is under construction.

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